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Dear Friends,

I have written a little book on global warming and climate change, taken from my blog herein with considerable extension. The title is “GASP! They’re Destroying our Security Blanket”. [See the cover image above]. You can get a copy directly from me. The book is primarily intended for the average person who’s heard a lot of the chatter and news, and wants a clear explanation of what it’s all about. Although the situation is dire, there is real reason for hope.

Please communicate with me by email: bob@bobfitch.com. I will add comments to the site, but using an editor’s prerogative. NB: for each topic comments appear at the end. See for example ‘An Education Manifesto’.

NB: a comment has been added to my blog “Our Security Blanket”, that shows what one family has done to completely change their behavior to lower their carbon imprint.

Bob Fitch is President of the consulting firm, Fitch & Associates, based in Taos, New Mexico. He retired as Senior Vice President for R & D and Chief Scientific Officer Worldwide for SC Johnson in Racine, Wisconsin in 1990. Prior to that he was Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science for 15 years at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. In earlier years he held positions at North Dakota State University and at The Marshall Laboratories of DuPont in Philadelphia. He was responsible for establishing the academic polymer science programs at both North Dakota State and UConn. He holds patents and has published over 100 papers and three books in the fields of Polymer Colloids and polymers at interfaces. His advanced textbook, entitled Polymer Colloids, A Comprehensive Introduction, published by Academic Press, appeared in April, 1997.

A new book, entitled GASP! They’re Destroying Our Security Blanket, has been released by TatePublishing in November, 2015. It’s a handbook for the layman on global warming and climate change.

Fitch holds an A.B. degree from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, both in chemistry.

His research interests have included: mechanisms of particle formation in polymer colloids and their surface chemistry, chemical reactions at the interface in polymer colloids, controlled release of drugs, dielectric spectroscopy of model colloids, and the behavior of polymers at liquid interfaces.

He has served as consultant to major corporations such as DuPont, Kodak, Hercules, Borg-Warner, American Cyanamid and SC Johnson. Fitch also has been a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, the Norwegian Institute of Technology (as Senior Fulbright Scholar), the University of Bristol, England (as Science Research Council Senior Visiting Fellow), and the Institute Charles Sadron in Strasbourg, France. He has chaired two Gordon Research Conferences and has served on the Board of Trustees of the Gordon Conferences.

Fitch has been deeply involved in science education for many years. He was inducted into the Southeastern Wisconsin Educators Hall of Fame for his work in helping to establish the Education/Industry Science Alliance in that region under National Science Foundation sponsorship. He was the founding chairman of the National Industry Council for Science Education which later became a part of the Corporate Council for Mathematics and Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences. This involved senior technology officers of major technology-based corporations in supporting best practice in science education. He has served on the Management Team of the National Institute for Science Education, a research-oriented entity supported by a $10M grant from the National Science Foundation. Fitch was Chairman of the Advisory Board of the National Science Resources Center, a joint project of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academy of Sciences. This last focusses on experiential learning in the early grades by means of the development and distribution of laboratory and instructional resources, leadership training at local school districts and regional centers, and the involvement of industry support.

The arts also figure prominently in Fitch’s life: he is former Treasurer and then Chairman of the Board of Taos Talking Pictures, unique in that it had a strong educational component in media literacy; and he was Vice Chairman of the Board of the Taos Institute of Arts; and he served on the Board of the Taos Chamber Music Group. Avocational interests include skiing, hiking, photography - especially of alpine wildflowers [click

on the “Alpine Wildflowers” section heading at the top of this page.] - and the collection of antique scientific instruments.

Quotations

“When one turns to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, and sees how it was reared; what thousands of disinterested* moral lives lie buried in its mere foundations; what patience and postponement, what choking down of preference, what submission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely impersonal it stands in its vast augustness – then how besotted and contemptible seems every little sentimentalist who comes blowing his voluntary smoke wreaths, and pretending to decide things from out of this private dream!”